People Before Profit blog

Imperialisms design on Venezuela, Cuba condemned

Fri, 30 Sep 2005 07:14:00 +0000

CARACAS, Venezuela – As part of the internationalist spirit of the World Youth and Student Festival, where 17,000 youth from over 130 countries came together here to build relationships, share experiences, and fight for peace and solidarity, an international anti-imperialist tribunal was held Aug. 13-14.

The tribunal condemned imperialism and its militaristic adventures all over the world. Speaker after speaker described the methods by-which U.S. imperialism, in particular, has destroyed life and livelihood; they testified about the CIA, terrorists funded by Washington, torture, assassination, economic embargos, bombings and media propaganda designed to confuse and distract the people of the world. Speaker after speaker gave testimony, provided documentation, eyewitness account, and video as supporting evidence.

Ricardo Alarcon, president of the Cuban National Assembly, said, imperialism has a “systematic, concerted plan to destroy the revolution in Cuba and Venezuela.” He added, “All of Latin America has to be ready. If imperialism attacks Venezuela the whole hemisphere has to rise up.”

Michael Cohen, a U.S. media critic, said, “the media is always used by imperialism” and “the war against Venezuela has already started.”

He described the “five golden rules of propaganda.” First, he said, “You have to conceal interests. Second, demonize the target. Third, hide history and geography. Fourth, monopolize information. And fifth, prevent debate.” Cohan added, that “media ownership, advertisers, broader links to the economy, and prevailing ideology” play a determining role in how information is gathered and disseminated.

The leader of the Bolivarian Revolution, President Hugo Chavez, also gave testimony. He said, “the tribunal is not partial; it is moved by the strength and love of the people.”

Chavez called the U.S. the “cruelest, most violent empire the world has ever known,” and added, “either we dismantle imperialism, or imperialism will do away with us.” He called president Bush “Mr. Danger” and said, “putting Mr. Danger on trial is equivalent to putting U.S. imperialism on trial.”

“Mr. Danger has condemned me to death,” Chavez said, adding that Bush wants Venezuela’s oil. Venezuela has 14,000 gas stations in the U.S. “We provide the U.S. with 1.5 million barrels of oil a day, but the U.S. market is not essential to us. If Venezuela stopped providing oil to the U.S. gas would go up to over $10 a gallon. Our oil is for Venezuela and will benefit the Venezuelan people.”

While Chavez focused much of his speech on the perils of imperialism, he also outlined many ambitious national and international objectives. He talked about the need to feed and house the Venezuelan people, internal infrastructure and development, building international solidarity with other counties by supplying oil at below market value and providing loans to other nations with low interest rates. Chavez also talked about establishing an anti-imperialist publishing house. And promised, “the Venezuelan government will finance the publishing of 20 million anti-imperialist books.”

He said, “The world has two choices, socialism or barbarism.” And added, “The cradle of our project is here in Venezuela. But we count on, rely on, the people of the U.S., of the world, in our project. The Festival is just a first step. The Festival must transcend, multiply itself, and renew its commitment to struggle. The people of the world conscious and united can topple the empires and save the world.”

Delegates erupted in applause as Chavez said, “our task, the task of the youth, is to save the world. It is up to you to bring the good news. Imperialism is not invincible. A new world is possible.”

Letters

Fri, 30 Sep 2005 04:06:00 +0000

Disaster-dependent no more

For President Bush, the disaster that is Hurricane Katrina puts “paid” to the idea that his administration is disaster-dependent.

Four years ago, his failing presidency was saved by the 9/11 WTC disaster. With his neo-conservative ideologues, a carefully orchestrated Hollywood-like production of false leadership and patriotism was fashioned, using the fear and anger of the people.

Then followed a campaign of lies and distortions to advance a foreign policy of revitalized U.S. imperialism under the guise of fighting terrorism to protect the homeland. The War on Terrorism began.

At the same time he and his ideologues set about dismantling our government “of the people, by the people and for the people” and replacing it with one “of the wealthy, by the wealthy and for the wealthy.”

Corporations were freed of restrictions on their natural greed. Globalization and the “free (not fair) market” became the 11th and 12th Commandments.

On Aug. 29 another disaster struck our country and President Bush learned that not all disasters are the same. The nation and the world discovered that the government the president has built since 9/11/2001 was unable and/or unwilling to respond with the necessary leadership and care. The government that was capable and willing to respond to the desires of the wealthy and corporate classes was ideologically and functionally unable to respond to the desperate needs of its broad citizenry.

Further trouble for the Bush government was that there were no outside figures (Osama, Saddam, liberals, France, a “few bad apples”) to blame. All fingers pointed inward.

Instead of the “mission accomplished” flight suit costume, today national and world opinion has cloaked Bush in a well-deserved mantle of shame and criminal negligence against humanity.

A positive aftermath of Hurricane Katrina may well be: Impeach Bush — an idea whose time has come.

Bill Appelhans

Chicago IL

Caring, not killing

For eight years during the 1970s my daughter Karen lived in the French Quarter of New Orleans. I have visited those beautiful streets many times and know the area well.

My daughter and I are greatly disturbed to hear of the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina — which was just waiting to happen because the area has been 10 feet below sea level. In 2001, the Federal Emergency Management Agency ranked a hurricane strike in New Orleans among the three most likely catastrophes facing the U.S. In spite of this, the Bush White House cut funding for the Army Corps of Engineers, which would have improved the levees.

We both agree that if all the money, human resources and equipment sent to Iraq were used in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, homeland security would be greatly improved — caring not killing.

June Krebs

Via fax

Police and protest

It was on the corner of Broadway and 7th Street in Los Angeles where I experienced the magic of protest for the first time in my life. I could hear drums banging and protestors chanting and screaming at the top of their lungs. As police officers looked on the marchers, I could not help to observe the difference in thought. Officers of the law stood by with seemingly disgusted looks on their face, as I stood there wondering about their thoughts. They laughed and joked, completely ignoring what was going on in their presence. Where’s the unity among our people? Among ourselves?

Jose Juarez

Los Angeles CA

Exit strategy

I would like to say something in favor of a prompt exit strategy from Iraq. I would like to paraphrase a mentor of mine, Archie Green of the University of Illinois, a historian of the labor movement who said of the war at the time that he thought that the only problem with getting the troops out of Vietnam was a problem of transportation — there was no way to get them out fast enough.

This is the problem we face today. There is no practical way to get the troops out of Iraq quickly enough, but I have faith in Yankee ingenuity and I believe that if we put the best minds in the country to work on the problem we could find a way to get them out today. I don’t wish to be unreasonable so I’m willing to compromise; if any want to stay behind and fight for a while I would settle for having them home by the weekend.

Saturday afternoon at the latest.

James Stewart

Via e-mail

Einstein vs. racism

In an opinion article in the September issue of Physics Today, journalist Fred Jerome reports a little-known fact about the world-famous scientist, Albert Einstein. In a 1946 speech at Lincoln University, the oldest Black college in the Western world, he called racism America’s “worst disease.” Einstein had earlier that same year termed racism a disease not of Black people, but of whites, and went on to pledge that he “would not remain silent about it.” Einstein was a friend of, and fellow battler against racism, of African American thinkers (and Communists) Paul Robeson and W.E.B. Du Bois. And it has been known for a long time that he was a charter member of an American Federation of Teachers union local in New Jersey.

Jerome goes on to detail why it is that America’s long river of racism has not so much been dammed up as it has been diverted. He cites one telling statistic: In a recent survey of the 50 top-ranked university physics departments in the U.S., just 0.6 percent of faculty members had identifiable African heritage. References for these and other quotations cited by Jerome can be found in the recent book “Einstein on Race and Racism,” by F. Jerome and R. Taylor, Rutgers University Press, Piscataway, N.J.

Einstein, 50 years after his death, remains a source of inspiration for all of us. In addition to his revolutionary theories in physics, he was a socialist, a friend to all working people, and a courageous battler against racism. Let us honor his memory.

John Pappademos

Ferguson MO

Helpful updates

Thanks very much for the information regarding the legislation about the NLRB in your weekly Labor Update. Please keep it coming.

Andrew Skaggs

Via e-mail

Editorial: Hypocrisy on terrorism

Fri, 30 Sep 2005 04:03:00 +0000

While the Bush administration talks tough on terrorism, it went to court to keep admitted terrorist murderer Luis Posada Carriles from being brought to justice. Posada Carriles, among other things, masterminded the 1976 bombing of a Cuban passenger jet that killed over 70 people.

Terrorist Posada Carriles, a rabid anti-Castro Cuban exile, is a citizen of Venezuela and the bomb plot was carried out in Venezuela. He has longstanding ties to the CIA. The Venezuelan government and people want to try him on 73 murder counts for the jetliner bombing. After Posada Carriles waltzed into the U.S. recently, Venezuela asked the U.S. to extradite him.

Now, a federal immigration judge has blocked the extradition. The reason the judge gave? He accepted the Bush administration argument — presented by a lawyer for the Department of Homeland Security — that Posada Carriles might be “tortured” in Venezuela.

What hypocrisy from an administration that has sought to both justify and cover up systematic torture and other violations of human rights and international law, hiding under the banner of a “war on terror.”

When Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was ousted in a violent U.S.-backed coup and then restored to office by a people’s uprising, one of the first acts of the newly reinstated Chavez government was to inform the coup plotters that, “as citizens of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, your rights are guaranteed by law.”

Venezuela says its sole concern is that Posada Carriles be locked up, unable to do more harm. “We are willing to put him in a house made of gold and feed him caviar, as long as he is tried in Venezuela,” Foreign Minister Ali Rodríguez Araque said recently.

In fact, it is the Bush administration that has been revealed as a torturer of prisoners, many of whom were later freed after it was determined they had nothing to do with any crime.

This administration is defending a proven terrorist mass killer. It is more evidence that Bush’s “war on terror” is a sham — just like the sham he perpetrated on the American people when he said that Iraq was full of weapons of mass destruction.

Guantanamo hunger strike

Fri, 30 Sep 2005 03:33:00 +0000

Despite conflicting reports from the Pentagon and total silence from the Red Cross, prisoners at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have held several hunger strikes since 2002, protesting conditions and their prolonged confinement without any formal charges.

Nearly 1,000 men from over 40 countries have been imprisoned here since the 2001 U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. In four years, none of the inmates have been charged with any crime, prompting international demands that they either be charged and tried or released from custody.

According to British attorney Clive Stafford Smith, who represents several prisoners, the latest hunger strike began in August and continued through Sept. 17. He told reporters that the strike involved up to a third of the camp’s prisoners. U.S. military officials acknowledged that 20 prisoners in handcuffs and leg irons were being forced fed in the facility’s hospital.

Stafford Smith said that the current strike began when prisoners witnessed the abuse of Hisham Sliti by U.S. guards.

Kristine Huskey, a Washington lawyer representing three imprisoned Kuwaiti men, reported after a recent visit, “The situation in the camp itself is very bad. The hunger strike is far more widespread than the government is letting on.”

She added that lawyers visiting their clients are, as a condition of getting access to them, subject to censorship of their notes by the military. Attorneys had to get a federal court order to even get access the camp.

The Pentagon denied entry to the International Red Cross until the agency agreed not to disclose conditions in the camp.

LETTERS

Fri, 23 Sep 2005 04:55:00 +0000

Extradite Posada Carriles

The Bush administration offer of protection to Luis Posada Carriles through a low-key, immigration hearing in El Paso, Texas (PWW 9/10-16), ignored by the media, in fact applies the unconstitutional Cuban Adjustment Act to a fugitive from justice.

Because Posada Carriles has been a CIA agent since the late l960s, he understands the double-speak prevalent in far-flung U.S. intelligence operations. For instance, filing for political asylum is more politically correct than filing for citizenship. “Security official” elicits more sympathy than a freedom fighter (mercenary) wanted for international terrorism in a bombing incident killing 73 innocent airline passengers near Barbados, Oct. 6, 1976.

Belonging to a U.S. shadow government that exists to impose extra-legal methods on non-compliant governments, Posada Carriles is another chicken coming home to roost. Apparently, free trade as a neoliberal process for economic interference and intervention in sovereign countries includes career criminals ducking international law for safe haven in lush South Florida environs. To boost U.S. prestige, extradite Posada Carriles to Venezuela. Then release the heroic Cuban Five!

Richard Grassl, Via e-mail

Like a tree

I saw Cindy Sheehan last weekend, which inspired me to write this poem after James Leigh Hunt’s “Jenny Kissed Me.” Cindy gave me big hug after I told her my son-in-law had been killed in 9/11. She is like a big tree.

Cindy Hugged Me Cindy hugged me when we met. Standing at the door she held me Weeping with a sad regret. She consoled me and upheld me. Say I’m weepy, say I’m sad, Say that happiness eludes me. Say I’m growing old, but add, Cindy hugged me.

Wright Salisbury, Lexington MA

Fault capitalism

How much more proof do the peoples of the world need to finally realize and admit that American-style Darwinian capitalism is to blame for most of the world’s major problems and that socialism offers pragmatic solutions to most of these?

I hope PWW will systematically study each global world problem, trace its root causes and outline possible solutions that lie in socialism.

The world cannot go on like this much longer before capitalism eats us — alive.

Willard B. Shapira, Minneapolis MN

Scary Silence

Startlingly little has been made of a recent preposterous 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that upheld the president’s asserted authority to waive the constitutional rights of U.S. citizens under certain provisions of the Patriot Act. One would expect a crazy decision like this, fraught with such chilling implications for our liberties, to cause a firestorm of public reaction. But, evidently, we’re not the freedom-loving people we once were assumed to be.

The court decided that U.S. citizens’ rights to due process and habeas corpus, so fundamental to our Republic, are now, in effect, optional at the whim of the president. Currently, at least one citizen, Jose Padilla, has been incarcerated in an indeterminate location for more than three years without any charges having been filed against him. He has been denied bail and any access to his lawyers, family or press. Padilla has been stripped of his “inalienable” rights. The Bush administration says it may keep Padilla locked up for his natural life and insists is justified in doing so under provisions of the Patriot Act, most of which were recently made “permanent” by Congress. The appeals court ruling upheld Bush’s interpretation of this odious legislation.

Uncharacteristically, no member of Congress has yet publicly remarked on this outrage, forcing one to conclude that they have no problem with the court’s decision. So, we are no longer a free people. That is, unless soon-to-be Chief Justice Roberts’ Supreme Court reverses this freedom-crushing decision. But, don’t hold your breath. I’m afraid the dice have already been cast, and they’ve come up snake eyes. Roberts’ committee hearings have now concluded without even a single senator raising any question to him regarding the unjust imprisonment of fellow citizen Jose Padilla.

Cord MacGuire, Boulder CO

Reality time?

When the five Supreme Court justices awarded the presidency to George W. Bush in 2000, his first year was marked with wandering bewilderment. When 9/11 occurred, Bush manipulated this tragic event and breathed life into his fledgling presidency. It is no secret that during the mobilization of U.S. forces, for the purpose of invading Afghanistan and Iraq, the Bush administration claimed to be “an empire and the makers and creators of their own reality.” Years later, with a 38 percent approval rating, the loss of tens of thousands of lives, the cost of war mounting into billions of dollars, the destruction of FEMA, and a shortsightedness towards natural disasters, it may be that the Bush administration is instead being shaped by the reality of the world and American people. It is hard to argue against and manipulate figures, facts and fatalities.

Who can forget the 2004 presidential debates when Bush was asked, “If he had one thing to do over again, what would it be?” He could think of no regrets or no mistakes. A few days ago in response to Hurricane Katrina, President Bush claimed, “To the extent that the federal government didn’t fully do its job right, I take responsibility.” What an earth-shattering statement!

Please continue to write, demonstrate, speak out and keep the pressure on the Bush administration. Perhaps Mr. Bush will also admit to criminal negligence and resign, saving the American people from three more years of disaster.

Bill Wise, Alice TX

Chutzpah

It has to be the height of chutzpah or just plain arrogance for George W. Bush to stand before the UN body, as its most celebrated deadbeat, and call upon the world leaders to follow his policy of Manifest Destiny. It’s amazing that the rest of the world body, knowing its feelings of disgust over U.S. hegemony, had the decency, tact and diplomacy (after all, they are diplomats) to sit and listen as the U.S. president spewed out his disingenuous pontification. He surpassed his own arrogance by walking out on another world leader, Hugo Chavez, who won his election — contrary to ours.

Don Sloan MD, New York City NY

Labor Update

Fri, 23 Sep 2005 04:31:00 +0000

Boeing grounded for third week Production remains totally shut down at Boeing facilities across the U.S. as a strike of 18,000 aerospace workers enters its third week, according to Machinist Union spokesperson Connie Kelliher. Strikers are busy picketing in shifts at 68 gates 24 hours a day, Kelliher told the World. “Almost every local in this region has donated to the strike fund,” she said. “Everyone sees it as a fight that extends far beyond the gates of Boeing,” she explained, noting that the company is seeking concessions and to shift health care costs even though its profits have recently tripled. Anna Burger, president of the Change to Win Coalition, joined a picket line in front of Boeing’s former corporate headquarters in Seattle and announced that affiliated unions, including many locals in the area, had donated $125,000 to the Machinists’ strike fund.

AFSCME, SEIU sign pact Two service sector unions announced the signing of a national, two-year agreement that neither union will attempt to raid the other.

The unions are setting up a new “California United Homecare Workers Union, AFSCME/SEIU” to represent the 25,000 home care providers who are not currently protected by either union. The caregivers provide in-home services to seniors and people with disabilities. The unions said their goal is to win fair contracts that include a livable wage and health care. The 120,000 home care and nursing home workers who are already SEIU and AFSCME members will work in partnership while their locals maintain their autonomy.

AFSCME and SEIU will also form new statewide unions in both California and Pennsylvania to unite home-based family childcare providers and to improve benefits and stability in the childcare profession. The new union will be affiliated with both AFSCME and SEIU. The two unions established a legally binding dispute resolution procedure.

Toast the Farmworkers The United Farm Workers urged its supporters to buy a bottle of Gallo of Sonoma wine to toast the end of its three-month boycott and the signing of its new contract with the winemaker covering 310 vineyard workers.

Steelworkers vote ‘no’ 140-0 Hurricane relief workers won’t be getting their shovels from a West Virginia factory which locked out its workforce after they voted unanimously to reject the company’s demand to cut their pay from $17 to $6.22 an hour and to raise their health insurance family deductible to $10,000. Of the 162 workers at Ames True Temper, Inc., 141 had over 30 years of service, said United Steelworkers spokesperson Karen Shipley.

The factory, in Parkersburg, W.Va., manufactures shovels which sell at stores like Home Depot, Lowe’s and Wal-Mart for $8 to $12 each. The company took in $114 million in profits last year. It told the union it wanted to reduce the labor costs per shovel from $1.28 to 68 cents, Shipley told the World. Ames True Temper’s parent company is ATT Holding.

International support for NYU union Presidents of three countries canceled their scheduled appearances at New York University in a show of support for graduate students there struggling for union recognition. Luis Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil, Luis Rodriguez Zapatero of Spain, and Nestor Kirchner of Argentina were scheduled to discuss “Latin American and Europe: Challenges and Realities” on Sept. 15 when the AFL-CIO asked them not to appear at any NYU events until the university agrees to negotiate with GSOC/UAWE Local 2110, the union representing graduate teaching and research assistants.

Unite Here leaves AFL-CIO The executive board of Unite Here, with 450,000 members in the hotel, gaming laundry, apparel and textile industries, voted Sept. 13 to disaffiliate from the AFL-CIO. It announced it would be participating in the upcoming founding convention of the Change to Win Coalition Sept. 27 in St. Louis. “Unite Here remains committed to working with any union and community organization at local, state and national, and international levels,” the executive board’s statement said.

Labor update is compiled by Roberta Wood (rwood @ pww.org).

NATIONAL CLIPS

Fri, 23 Sep 2005 04:11:00 +0000

HUNTSVILLE, Texas: State executes Frances Newton

Despite a grassroots movement and appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court, Texas executed Frances Newton, 40, on Sept. 14. Outside the prison, scores of protesters held a vigil.

Newton is the third woman executed by Texas since the Civil War and the first Black woman since the state resumed the death penalty in 1982.

“It’s a sad statement about the judicial process,” said John LaGrappe, one of Newton’s attorneys. Newton was a victim of poverty, he charged. During the initial appeals process following her 1987 conviction for the murders of her husband and two children, Newton had to rely on court-appointed lawyers who missed appeal deadlines.

Newton maintained her innocence to the end. She is the 13th person executed so far this year in Texas.

ATLANTA: Civil rights groups sue to protect voting rights

Common Cause, the League of Women Voters, the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus and the NAACP were in federal court Sept. 19, seeking to overturn a new state law requiring voters to show photo ID to cast their ballot. The new law prompted a walkout by Democratic legislators when it was passed by the first completely Republican-controlled state Legislature since Reconstruction.

The suit compares the photo ID requirement to the outlawed poll tax because it costs $20 to obtain a five-year state-issued photo ID and $35 for a 10-year photo ID. With gasoline hovering at $3 a gallon, voters in rural areas, far from state offices, would particularly suffer, the suit says.

Former President Bill Clinton called the new law “just wrong. They’re cutting a lot of folks out of that vote.”

Tim Storey of the National Council of State Legislatures said the Georgia election law is unique among all 50 states because it only accepts photo ID. Other states accept other forms of identification from voters.

RICHMOND, Va.: Mountaintop mining back in court

The Army Corps of Engineers issues permits to coal corporations to blow off the tops of mountains so coal companies can strip out coal. In 2004, U.S. District Judge Joseph Goodwin in Charleston, W.Va., ruled in favor of residents and environmentalists, making the process harder for coal companies.

But coal operators and the Bush administration were back in appeals court here on Sept. 19 to overturn Judge Goodwin’s decision. The three-judge panel includes two Bush I appointees and one Bush II appointee. In the past four years, Judges Paul V. Niemeyer and J. Michael Luttig, both appointed by Bush I, have overturned lower court rulings restricting mountaintop mining.

Coal miners are expected to set another record for coal production this year, over 1 billion tons, but the coal companies and Bush officials are arguing that Goodwin’s decision has curtailed coal production in West Virginia.

The Army Corps has issued 12 mountaintop permits in the Mountain State so far this year.

JACKSON, Miss.: Justice Dept. smears environmental groups

The Clarion Ledger newspaper obtained a Sept. 15 U.S. Justice Department internal e-mail soliciting federal attorneys to report any cases brought by environmental organizations regarding New Orleans’ levees. “Has your district defended any cases on behalf of the Army Corps of Engineers against claims by environmental groups seeking to block or otherwise impede the Corps’ work on the levees protecting New Orleans? If so, please describe the case and the outcome of the litigation,” the e-mail said.

The newspaper reported that the e-mail may have been sparked by an article in the right-wing National Review magazine. That article attacked the Sierra Club and other environmental organizations for a 1996 suit which insisted that the Army Corps conduct an environmental impact study before commencing work on 303 miles of levee work along the Mississippi River. But those levees were not the ones that broke following Hurricane Katrina. The levees that broke, flooding New Orleans, were those along Lake Pontchartrain, which were not part of the Sierra Club lawsuit.

“Why are they trying to smear us like this?” asked Sierra Club senior attorney David Bookbinder. “It is unfortunate that the Bush administration is trying to shift the blame to environmental groups. It doesn’t surprise me at all.”

The online publication Raw Story quotes Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) on the Justice Department maneuver: “If the president is sincere when he says he accepts responsibility for the abysmal federal response to Hurricane Katrina, he should instruct the Justice Department to stop trying to smear environmentalists by blaming them for the government’s failure to shore up the levee system in Louisiana.”

Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, demanded that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales explain the cost, purpose and origin of the e-mail. Conyers said the Justice Department should be focused on helping the people of the Gulf, not blame-shifting.

National Clips are compiled by Denise Winebrenner Edwards (dwinebr696 @aol.com). Julia Lutsky contributed to this week’s clips.

Calif. gov. to veto same-sex marriage

Fri, 16 Sep 2005 06:51:00 +0000

Within a day after the California Legislature approved a bill legalizing same sex marriage, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said last week that while he respects the legal protections already in place in California for gays, he would reject the bill and believes the issue should be settled in court.

“The governor believes the matter should be determined not by legislative action — which would be unconstitutional — but by court decision or another vote of the people of our state,” said Schwarzenegger’s press spokesperson, Margita Thompson. “We cannot have a system where the people vote and the Legislature derails that vote.”

Thompson was referring to a ballot measure voters overwhelmingly approved in 2000 defining marriage as between a man and a woman. That measure is now being challenged in the state’s courts.

When the Assembly passed the measure on Sept. 6, the California Legislature became the first legislative body in the U.S. to OK same-sex marriage.

Letters

Fri, 16 Sep 2005 06:22:00 +0000

Union-powered solidarity

The enormous Astrodome is home for thousands of Louisiana refugees, and many churches, civic centers, various shelters, even motels, hotels and apartment centers are providing safe havens also. Many generous folks are taking these people into their personal homes.

As we watched the horrible days unfolding, there were outcries from the victims and the public in general watching from the safety of their homes: What is happening? Why isn’t there help for these people? Where is the government help President Bush promised?

Our union is donating $5,000. Many of our members have donated their time and money to the Dome and other shelters.

The IBEW hall in Gulfport, Miss., has requested 300 electricians ASAP to bring extra tools, boots and work clothing for the members of that local who have lost everything. A business manager and an assistant are missing from two other locals in the region. All union halls in Houston are collecting donations from their members.

Not only Texas is opening the doors, but states everywhere. Families have been separated — babies and small children being sent in one direction, parents in another — in different states!

My own nephew and his family lost their home and all possessions. They lived in Slidell, La., located just north of New Orleans. They came to my sister’s home near Galveston bringing two neighbors, two relatives — all in all, nine people, eight dogs, and three cats came in a convoy. It took them 18 hours to go about 360 miles!

Pat Burnham

Houston TX

Pat Burnham is founder of WATT Women, a caucus of Houston IBEW women electricians.

Katrina, racism and art

I went to a book reading recently at the Studio Museum in Harlem. The author of “How to Rent-a-Negro,” Damali Ayo, was very funny, satirical and energetic in confronting racism and the personal indignities of it. Among other examples, she said, strangers are always coming up to her and touching her hair. She finally made up a T-shirt that says: Touch your own hair!

During the reading, she said most likely the president and first lady are desperate to “rent-a-Negro” because of the racist response to Katrina. Her comments on Hurricane Katrina were sharp in their focus on the criminal and deadly effects of the convergence of poverty and racism. “I know there are poor white people,” she said, but this country’s inability to even have an intelligent discussion about racism or reparations is why the poor Black citizens of New Orleans are being treated like, and being called, “animals,” “looters” and “refugees” (instead of citizens or evacuees).

Her book and her art have certainly opened up new possibilities for an intelligent dialogue and a re-examination of our perceptions of how far we have come as individuals and as a nation.

Rubén Alvear

Bronx NY

Katrina awakens whites?

Although Katrina came to our country in a somewhat undignified manner, she might still be a true Russian lady. Of course, that depends upon whether her rough visit affects the American people positively. She might awaken white people from racist attitudes, however subconscious. Even the mainstream media are paying more attention to our country’s economic injustice and how it exacerbates racism.

I have read that each enlisted person in the Soviet Union was required to salute each Soviet officer that she or he encountered and ask, “How do you serve?” In response, the officer was required to return the salute, and answer, “I serve the people!”

Not only does President Bush figuratively use only his middle finger to return our salute, he refuses to serve the people. Few can doubt that Bush would have provided aid much faster had those trapped by Katrina been sufficiently white or rich. He certainly moved fast enough after other hurricanes had injured predominantly white regions in Florida. His slow response to Katrina caused predominantly Black regions in the Gulf Coast to suffer extreme hardship, including too many needless deaths. Whether Bush is incompetent, ignorant, or both, we need to impeach him and his entire administration as soon as possible.

David W. Mallisk

Wappingers Falls NY

Katrina and Iraq

Al-Jazeera television openly put two and two together, linking the abysmal U.S. government response in New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico to the presence of 40 percent of the National Guard in Iraq.

That angle graphically shows how imperialism, even by one’s own country, screws the working people.

The scale of this thing is massive, though I think the media are in fact underplaying its scope while doing round-the-clock coverage of minutiae of the thing.

I think the social and economic impact of Katrina will be enormous. It hits right at the reactionary Republican notion of “as little government as possible” and at the imperialist war. That’s a political angle that I think really needs to be emphasized.

Eric Mueller

Dallas TX

NWA fight is everyone’s fight

Thank you for your message of solidarity. Now is the time for all unions to close ranks. Many unions have come to AMFA’s [Airline Mechanics Fraternal Association] support, including the Longshoremen. The TWU has donated $260,000 to the fight.

Northwest is involved in flagrant union-busting. They have been secretly planning to bring in poorly trained “standard scab mechanics,” as you called them, for 18 months. Northwest executives told their board of directors that they expected to spend $107 million on the strike. According to independent news sources such as WCCO in Minneapolis, “It’s three times as much what it would take to cut a deal with the mechanics for two years.”

Northwest never intended to negotiate in good faith. The issues involved are not financial. We realize the economic conditions of the airline industry. AMFA offered to help Northwest Airlines financially. AMFA is protecting jobs. People do not realize that not only are we fighting for AMFA jobs, we are fighting for IAM [International Association of Machinists] jobs. In its last contract proposal, Northwest required AMFA mechanics to perform the work of IAM employees. We are striking over this. Yet I take issue with one point you made. You have repeated the often-used phrase that AMFA is a “raiding” union. How can this be? AMFA has no paid organizers. Please explain. All AMFA drives are conducted by grassroots organizing campaigns. AMFA is a true democracy. Any officer can be recalled by the membership. Perhaps you can correct this misrepresentation or tell me that I am wrong.

G.G. Hawkins

Via e-mail

G.G. Hawkins is a striking AMFA technician.

Editorial: Respect Venezuela

Fri, 16 Sep 2005 06:20:00 +0000

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez charged Sept. 13 that the Bush administration was trying to interfere with his participation in the UN’s 60th Anniversary Summit session by denying visas to his security and medical teams.

Referring to last month’s statement by far-right televangelist Pat Robertson that the U.S. should go ahead and assassinate him, Chavez said, “They threaten to kill me from there and then deny visas to my closest security team who have been with me for years, they deny my medical team their visas, I’m going to have to walk around the Big Apple by myself.”

By itself, denying entry to the support team of a head of state coming to the United Nations is a striking example of undiplomatic nastiness, unbecoming to the host of the world’s principal international organization. But viewed together with the Bush administration’s increasingly strident opposition to Venezuela’s independent course under Chavez, and its non-response to Robertson’s threat, the denial takes on more ominous overtones.

“If he thinks we’re trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it,” Robertson — a strong Bush backer — said Aug. 22 over his Christian Broadcasting Network. “It’s a whole lot cheaper than starting a war. And I don’t think any oil shipments will stop.”

Afterwards, the White House said nothing, the State Department called the remark “inappropriate,” and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said, “Certainly, it’s against the law,” but added, “Private citizens say all kinds of things all the time.”

The Bush administration’s response also contrasts with Venezuela’s own approach to relations with the United States. After Hurricane Katrina, Venezuela offered mobile hospitals, rescue and first aid experts, water purification and power generation plants, and food — only to have its offer summarily rejected.

Instead of petty-minded and potentially lethal diplomatic gamesmanship, Washington should be doing its utmost to build normal relations with a near neighbor now taking a prominent role in regional affairs. The Bush administration also needs to rethink the way it conducts itself as host to the world’s greatest international organization, the United Nations.

Editorial: Corporate looters

Fri, 16 Sep 2005 06:18:00 +0000

Shaw Group, Fluor, Bechtel, Halliburton and its subsidiary KBR are flocking like vultures to feast on the $62 billion or more in federal contracts to rebuild the region devastated by Hurricane Katrina. These “no bid” contracts are nothing less than a looting of the public till.

Bush is sweetening the pot by suspending the Davis-Bacon Act for the region. The act requires contractors to pay the prevailing wage for any project funded by the federal government. The savings will flow into the coffers of these huge corporations, all heavy contributors to the Bush-Cheney campaigns and the Republican Party.

Already, KBR has grabbed a $500 million Pentagon contract to clean up damage done to Navy shipyards in Mississippi. Shaw was granted a $100 million to build temporary housing for some of the million homeless victims of Katrina. FEMA refuses to release any details on how these contracts have been negotiated.

Halliburton, KBR, and other military contractors have already been caught pilfering hundreds of millions in taxpayers dollars allocated for the occupation of Iraq. Estimates of “missing” funds range over $1 billion in Iraq.

We must demand that Congress halt this wholesale corporate thievery through emergency legislation. All bids for reconstruction must be open, with set-asides to insure minority contractors are not frozen out by the giants.

The scale of this disaster brings back memories of the Great Depression when the federal government intervened directly with a massive public works jobs program. It is hopeless to expect Bush-Cheney and the House and Senate majority leadership to enact a new New Deal. They see the pain and suffering of the region’s homeless million as just another opportunity for profiteering. But we can demand Congress enact a people’s watchdog committee to guarantee equitable allocation of federal taxpayer dollars and to insure that these funds flow to those from the Gulf region and to those who need it most without racism or discrimination.

The current crisis underlines the urgency of the elections next year, an opportunity to clean out the House and Senate and replace these right-wingers with lawmakers who represent the people instead of the corporate thieves.

Forced labor a global menace

Fri, 16 Sep 2005 06:16:00 +0000

Anna, now 21 years old, was born in the Ukrainian town of Kamenets-Podolsky, then still a part of the Soviet Union. During her early childhood, she led a typical family life and her basic needs were met. She lived with her mother and father, who was an engineer.

Her life began to change radically in 1991, when socialism in the USSR was dismantled. Her entire town was plunged into poverty as the town’s main employer shut down. Her family was left jobless, until her father went to work for lower wages as a mason. The transition proved too much a shock for him and he died.

With her family life destroyed, Anna became desperate. She struggled on until someone she had met offered her a job working at a hotel in another country. Anna accepted the position in hopes of finding a better life.

Her dreams were dashed, however. After being taken abroad, and after a trip across a desert on a pickup truck, she was locked inside an apartment. There was no hotel job waiting for her, nor was there a hotel. Instead, she was raped up to nine times a day by different men who paid her captors for the sex. Anna had unwittingly become trapped in sex slavery.

Anna eventually escaped, according to the Chasing the Dream Project (www.chasingthedream.org), which published her story online. She was lucky. However, countless others around the world are not so lucky.

Forced labor is pervasive

At least 12.3 million people in the world today work in slave-like conditions — and, in many cases, in actual slavery — says a May 2005 report on forced labor by the International Labor Organization (ILO), a United Nations-affiliated group dedicated to labor rights around the world.

Forced labor is “a social evil which has no place in the modern world,” said ILO Director-General Juan Somavia.

Astonishingly, one out of every 500 people on earth and one out of every 250 workers worldwide is a victim of forced labor, according to the ILO.

While 12.3 million people can be considered a whopping portion of humanity, it is likely that this number is understated because countries vary widely in their record-keeping practices.

“Forced labor” conjures up images of brutal regimes such as the Southern slavocracy in the U.S., Nazism in Germany or Pol Pot’s ruling clique in Cambodia in the 1970s. However, the vast majority of forced labor today happens in the private sector, according to the ILO report, which is titled “A Global Alliance Against Forced Labor.”

While 2.5 million people are still forced to work by state or “rebel military groups,” 9.8 million are exploited by “private agents.” Of these, an estimated 8 million are trapped in private sector industries.

“There has been a greater realization,” the report states, “that forced labor in its different forms can pervade all societies, and is by no means limited to a few pockets around the globe.”

UN’s definition

According to the ILO, forced labor comprises two elements: the work is done involuntarily and failure to perform brings a penalty. Examples of what is described as an involuntary activity could range from being born into slavery, to physical abduction and kidnapping, to lies about the type of work to be performed, to forced indebtedness or the withholding of identity documents, such as a green card. Examples of penalties range from physical or sexual violence to loss of rights, food or shelter. “Denunciation to authorities (police, immigration, etc.) and deportation” is also listed as a penalty that would constitute forced labor.

Of the 12.3 million victims, 9.49 million are in Asia and the Pacific region — especially Myanmar (formerly Burma) where state-imposed forced labor is extensive. Latin America and the Caribbean nations account for about 1.32 million people, and the “transition countries” — the nations that reverted from socialism back to capitalism — account for 210,000 people. This number is artificially low, the report notes, as it does not account for human trafficking, where people have been taken from their home country, either by being lured or captured, and forced into labor in a foreign land.

The industrialized nations in Europe and the United States are by no stretch immune from the problem: they account for 360,000 people engaged in forced labor, higher than the Middle East and North Africa (260,000) or the transition countries.

The private profit motive

The report breaks down the labor into different types. The vast majority, 64 percent, represents exploitation for private profit. Another 11 percent is private sexual exploitation, and 20 percent is compulsory state labor. An additional 5 percent is defined as “other.”

The report breaks the numbers down further by sex and age. Non-sexual forced labor is made up of 44 percent men and boys, and 56 percent women and girls. Sexual exploitation, on the other hand, is made up of 98 percent women and girls. Worse yet, the report estimates that children represent “between 40 and 50 percent of all victims of forced labor.”

While the report states that forced labor is a problem in every region of the globe, “the offense … even when recognized under national law, is very rarely punished.” Punishments for those convicted of the practice is small compared with the gravity of the offense, and there is a very low level of awareness worldwide. Forced labor is, the report states, one of the most hidden problems in the world today.

In the economic structure

While punishment and laws are necessary in order to combat these practices, this is not enough. The current structure of the economy in most nations, under modern capitalist globalization, is to blame as well.

“A broad mix of law enforcement, social and economic policies is needed to come to grips with the structural problems of forced labor,” the report concludes. This means reforming much of the “free trade” policies of globalization.

“With globalization you have increased competition, market forces are getting ever tougher,” Caroline O’Reilly, senior specialist on the Special Action Program on Forced Labor at the ILO in Geneva told the World. “There are pressures out there to reduce costs, and of course one of the ways that unscrupulous managers will respond to pressures to reduce costs is to exploit their labor force.”

The report dedicates a considerable amount of time to human trafficking.

“When [people] can’t migrate legally, they look for other ways and resort to traffickers and can end up in forced labor,” O’Reilly said.

In U.S. and Europe,

high rates of exploitation

While the number of people in forced labor in the United States and Europe is relatively low, the rate of profit stemming from such exploitation is much higher in the industrialized world.

According to the report, the estimated annual profit realized from each forced laborer in Asia who is pressed into sexual work is US$10,000, versus $412 for a worker in non-sexual work. But the corresponding figure for industrialized countries is $67,000 per worker in sexual labor, versus $30,154 per person in other types of labor.

The report carries out the math to its stunning conclusions: contrary to popular expectations, the revenue generated by forced labor is nowhere higher than in the industrialized nations. While the practice brings exploiters in Asia $9.7 billion, it generates $15.5 billion in the industrialized world.

While the report is broken down only by regions, there is overwhelming evidence that the U.S. is plagued by this problem as well.

“We think that there are at least 10,000 people who are actually enslaved in the United States at any given time,” Jacob Patton, director of outreach and technology at Free the Slaves, told the World. Free the Slaves is a U.S.-based anti-forced labor organization which, working together with the Human Rights Center at the University of California-Berkeley, produced a report titled “Hidden Slaves,” the first comprehensive study on forced labor in this country.

Patton emphasized that the estimate of 10,000 — like the ILO’s estimate — is a conservative figure, for the same reasons of inconsistent record keeping that the ILO cited in its report.

Patton said that while the stereotypical notions of slavery — brothels in New York’s Chinatown, for example — hold true, the problem is more widespread than that. “They are in several different industries,” he said. “Certainly there are people working in the Southeast and Southwest in agricultural work or industry. There are people enslaved working as domestic servants, and there are people forced to work as prostitutes as well.”

Shining the light on hidden slavery

According to “Hidden Slaves,” the majority of forced laborers were people trafficked in from China, Mexico and Vietnam. However, there are a large number of people who are born into slavery here in the United States. According to “Hidden Slaves,” many ethnic groups are affected. “Although many victims are immigrants, some are U.S. residents or citizens,” it states.

A case study in the “Hidden Slaves” report illustrates the point. A 13-year-old girl was abducted while waiting at a bus stop in Cleveland, Ohio, and then taken to Detroit, where she was held in a house full of other captive females. She and the others were forced to strip and have sex with male visitors and to sell trinkets at local malls.

The girls were disciplined using a carrot and stick approach. They were not allowed to go anywhere, even within the house, without a chaperone. If they were “good,” they were rewarded slightly. If they were “bad,” they were beaten violently.

The 13-year old girl eventually escaped. In January 2003, when she was taken to a Detroit mall, she ran into a convenience store and begged for help. She led police back to the house, and the perpetrators were arrested and found to have been operating a forced-labor ring since as far back as 1995.

According to the report, “Most of the teenagers reported being so afraid of [their captor] that they did not attend his formal sentencing hearing. Some of [his] victims say they now sleep with nightlights on or crawl into bed with their mothers. Others say they are experiencing emotional problems. One young woman, who was raped repeatedly at the Detroit house, is pregnant.”

Stressing the inhumane nature of the practice, the report continues, “Victims of forced labor have been raped, assaulted and murdered. They have been held in absolute control by their captors and stripped of their dignity. Some have been subjected to forced abortion. … Some have died during their enslavement.”

The report says that in the last five years alone, the press reports have indicated that 19,254 people were found in 131 situations involving forced labor.

“We found incidents of slavery from coast to coast in over 90 different locations throughout the States, and that’s from everywhere from New York and California certainly, but also Texas, areas in the Midwest as well,” he continued. “Slavery and trafficking is the third most lucrative form of organized crime, just behind drugs and weapons trafficking in the world, and that certainly applies to the U.S., too.”

The “Hidden Slaves” report notes that, while the U.S. has a law on the books — the Trafficking Victims Protection Act — federal law does not go far enough in helping those in slavery. Victims of forced labor are scared to come forward because of their “illegal” status, and are wary of talking to authorities. Therefore, most of the work done falls to poorly financed nongovernmental organizations.

The anti-trafficking law has other limitations, as well. By requiring that victims actively cooperate with the authorities, the law “creates the perception that survivors are … instruments of law enforcement, rather than individuals who are … deserving of … restoration of their human rights.”

While UN-affiliated agencies and NGOs within the United States are working to end the practice — with important successes, as in the case of Anna — the problem of forced labor continues to be widespread, and, as activists claim, people worldwide need to step up the pressure on their respective governments to enact measures to end the practice forever.

For more information, visit the ILO web site at www.ilo.org.

Dan Margolis (dmargolis@pww.org) is a member of the editorial board of the People’s Weekly Word.

Labor Update

Fri, 16 Sep 2005 06:10:00 +0000

EFCA adds sponsors

The Employee Free Choice Act recently added to its support in Congress. In the House, Republican Rep. Joe Schwarz (Mich.) and Democrat Rep. Bobby Rush (Ill.) are now co-sponsors of HR 1696. In the Senate, Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) has signed on as a co-sponsor to the companion legislation S 842.

There are now 201 co-sponsors to the House legislation and 38 co-sponsors to the Senate version of EFCA. The bill would require employers to recognize a union after a majority of workers sign cards authorizing union representation.

Autoworkers sign with Mitsubishi

NORMAL, Ill. (PAI) — By a 77 percent to 23 percent margin, Auto Workers Local 2488 ratified a 31-month contract extension with Mitsubishi Motors covering workers at its plant in Normal, Ill., the union said.

The pact gives the 2,400 workers there a 2 percent raise next March and a 3 percent increase in March 2007. They also get raises and/or lump sum payments based on the next round of bargaining between the UAW and DaimlerChrysler in 2007. The agreement has no increases in health insurance co-pays or out-of-pocket expenses, and no increases in prescription co-pays.

Two wins at Quebecor

VERSAILLES, Ky. (PAI) — The Graphic Communications International Union’s neutrality agreement with Quebecor is starting to pay off at North America’s second-largest publisher, the union reports. Three-fourths of the workers voted for GCIU/IBT at the Versailles, Ky., facility Sept. 1. In July, a majority at the Fernley, Nev., plant voted in the union. Together, the plants employ 500, said GCIU Communications Director Herald Grandstaff. “We didn’t get neutrality with Quebecor” (where the management agreed to stop anti-union campaigning) “until after the merger” of GCIU with the Teamsters earlier this year, he noted. “The proof is in the pudding.”

Key issues among the pressroom and materials workers in Versailles were health care, retirement and respect on the job. “To my fellow Quebecor workers across the country, I say: ‘Come join us,’” said Versailles pressman Rich Woods.

Labor Update is compiled by Roberta Wood (rwood@pww.org).

U.S. denies visa to Cuban leader

Fri, 16 Sep 2005 05:47:00 +0000

The U.S. government announced Sept. 2 that Ricardo Alarcon, president of the Cuban National Assembly, would not be granted a visa to attend the second conference of parliamentary presidents held by the Inter-Parliamentary Union Sept. 7-9 at UN headquarters in New York. Alarcon had applied for the visa in June. The president of the Iranian Parliament was also denied a visa.

To justify these actions, the U.S. government claimed that the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) is independent of the UN, that the latter merely provides space for the conferences. Washington had also denied Alarcon a visa on the occasion of the first meeting of the international group in 2000.

The IPU condemned the U.S. government for denying visas. It noted that the purpose of the conference was to promote “dialogue beyond our differences, without which true democracy or international cooperation can not exist.” In anticipation of U.S. intransigence, the UN General Assembly had expressly called for the host country “to extend the usual courtesies to the parliamentary delegations.”

Ironically, the U.S. government appears to have adopted its gatekeeper role despite having been expelled from the group for failing to attend meetings and pay dues.

Orlando Requeijo, Cuba’s permanent representative to the UN, read Alarcon’s message to the Inter-Parliamentary Conference Sept. 8. Expressing Cuba’s solidarity with the American people, Alarcon called for an outpouring of international assistance for the rescue and reconstruction campaigns following Hurricane Katrina.

In his message, Alarcon focused particularly on the UN World Summit, already programmed, as he sees it, to take on administrative reform issues while shortchanging what was to have been its main task, a review of progress towards the UN Millennium Development Goals for social justice. He was expected to receive a visa to attend the summit.

Alarcon alleged that powerful forces were intent upon converting the UN consensus on the Millennium Goals into a dead letter. The reference was of course to the United States, represented now at the UN by President Bush’s appointee, John Bolton.

Alarcon’s message continues: “The goals so solemnly proclaimed here five years ago are increasingly farther away. ... Hunger, malnutrition, poverty, illiteracy and ill health must be eradicated. Let us put a stop to the destruction of the environment, waste of natural resources, selfishness and greed that bring about soil, sea and atmosphere poisoning.”

Alarcon concluded with calls for extradition of the terrorist Luis Posada Carriles to Venezuela and freedom for the Cuban Five.

New Yorks Labor Day parade

Fri, 16 Sep 2005 03:23:00 +0000

NEW YORK — As many as 200,000 people marched Sept. 10 in New York City’s Labor Day parade, including workers from all the city’s unions, anti-Wal-Mart activists, elected leaders, mayoral hopefuls — and People’s Weekly World/Nuestro Mundo (PWW) distributors, who handed out 5,000 sample copies of the paper at the event.

The New York labor parade is the largest and oldest of its type in the United States.

The AFL-CIO leadership was there in force: John Sweeney, the federation’s president, marched, along with Brian McLaughlin, president of the New York Central Labor Council (CLC), and Denis Hughes, president of the state AFL-CIO, as well as leaders of other AFL-CIO-affiliated unions, including the United Federation of Teachers, AFSCME District Councils 1707 and 37, and many others.

However, in a deliberate gesture by the CLC to promote labor unity, both the parade’s grand marshal and chairman were members of unions associated with the Change to Win Coalition, which led a breakaway from the AFL-CIO in July. Peter Ward, executive vice president of Unite Here, served as grand marshal, while Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail Workers Department Store Union, served as chairman.

The themes of the this year’s parade were multifold: aid to the victim’s of Hurricane Katrina and remembrance of 9/11 victims, protecting unionization rights, protecting diversity and immigrants within the U.S. working class, and supporting public education. A special emphasis was put on the fight against Wal-Mart, which many see as a campaign that builds labor unity.

“The message of this Labor Day Parade is that all unions stand together in saying ‘No’ to Wal-Mart,” Appelbaum said at the parade. “Wal-Mart’s promise of low prices comes at too high a cost. Wal-Mart’s values are not New York’s values.”

While there have been divisions within the labor movement over city’s upcoming mayoral election, since a number of key unions have endorsed Republican Mayor Michael Bloomberg, PWW distributors said that there was little to no enthusiasm from anyone with whom they spoke for the current mayor — even within the unions whose leadership endorsed him.

Unite Here held a rally where Bloomberg spoke. While eyewitnesses said the crowd cheered with enthusiasm for their union, they said Bloomberg himself received a much less enthusiastic reception.

A number of members of the United Federation of Teachers held up the “Unions for Bloomberg” signs that the mayor’s campaign workers had distributed. However, the teachers holding the signs — who have been without a contract for years — weren’t holding them in the way that Bloomberg’s camp would have liked: They held the signs up high, but they had torn them in half.

Some members of DC37, which also endorsed Bloomberg, carried signs or wore stickers for Fernando Ferrer, Bloomberg’s likely rival.

While reading the PWW, a member of Transport Workers Union Local 100, whose union endorsed Ferrer, saw the article headlined “Labor activists question mayoral endorsement” and remarked, “Yeah. I’m not really an activist, but I’m questioning Bloomberg, too.”

Many complimented the PWW’s labor coverage, both local and national, and said they enjoyed the paper.

The People’s Weekly World annual fund drive started on Sept. 15. Help make sure that we will be at the Labor Day parades nationwide next year and for years to come!

Venezuela exports solidarity: Citgo sponsors Puerto Rican festival

Fri, 09 Sep 2005 02:27:00 +0000

CHICAGO — Fiesta Boricua, the annual Puerto Rican community festival in Humboldt Park here, got a lifeline from an unusual source. Venezuelan-owned Citgo donated $100,000, half of the festival’s cost, so the show could go forward on Labor Day weekend.

In what could be called a skillful move by Venezuelan officials, the sponsorship comes at a time when the Bush administration has increased its attacks on Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chavez, and the country’s Bolivarian Revolution. In response, Venezuela has initiated people-to-people, grassroots diplomacy and solidarity to counter the Bush administration assault.

“By showing that we are exporting solidarity and not bombs, we hope it will inspire people in the United States to say, ‘Hey, that country and President Chavez are not what the media says they are, because we’ve been helped,’” Martin Sanchez, the Venezuelan consul general in Chicago, said.

Venezuela has offered to create a way to export affordable heating oil for poor people in the United States, millions in aid for the victims of Hurricane Katrina, and free eye surgery for citizens in the Americas.

Sponsorship of Fiesta Boricua also provides a chance to publicize “Venezuela Matters,” Sanchez said. “Venezuela Matters,” a multimedia cultural exhibit, will go on a six-city tour that starts here Oct. 13 (see PWW 9/3-9).

Although some residents may be upset by Citgo’s sponsorship, most will probably appreciate the solidarity. Chicago Alderman Billy Ocasio drew loud cheers when he singled out Venezuela for its help “when it looked like this festival wasn’t going to happen” at a Sept. 1 event.

Reporting by Oscar Avila of the Chicago Tribune contributed to this story.

Letters

Fri, 09 Sep 2005 02:12:00 +0000

Stop corporate looters

There should be no profiteering permitted off of the suffering of the people in New Orleans, Louisiana, Mississippi and elsewhere because of the hurricane and flood.

I have called on N.J. Sen. Jon Corzine and my congressperson Rep. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) to do the following: when Congress convenes, introduce a bill to freeze gasoline prices immediately across the country; roll back prices to Aug. 15 levels according to the Lundberg price survey report listing prices of that date; seize all excess “above normal” profits and turn them over to flood victims’ relief.

This money would head contributions by the generous and sympathetic American people to the hard-pressed people of the South.

Pat Barile

Jersey City NJ

The People v. Bush

The most justified class action suit ever: The People of New Orleans v. G.W. Bush! If the people of New Orleans sued George Bush, FEMA and Homeland Security for criminal negligence during the recent Hurricane Katrina crisis, do you think that they might have a case?

“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the defendants had three days notice before Hurricane Katrina struck in which to remove to safety the thousands of residents of New Orleans who are now dead, dying or severely injured. The defendants had the means to remove them to safety. Since Sept. 11, 2001, defendants had been given billions and billions of dollars to prepare for just such an emergency as a major evacuation of a city. Instead they did nothing. Nothing, your honor! Bush, FEMA and Homeland Security left these people — the sick, the infirm, the young and the elderly — to starve and die.”

Talk about winning your case! No jury in the nation, presented with all the evidence, could fail to bring in a verdict of “Guilty!”

The lawsuit could set an example here: Criminal negligence by a “government” mandated to protect America is no longer acceptable.

Jane Stillwater

Via e-mail

Unequal treatment

It never ceases to amaze me. I remember all the pomp and indignation when the 9/11-World Trade Center disaster occurred. I remember the immediate aid, the response and the nation brought together. One wonders about disparate and discriminatory treatment. Is an African American that much different than a white suburbanite? Why do the food, water and shelter become unavailable when the majority are African Americans? Why are the bodies allowed to lie indiscriminately in the streets? Why do we not have an estimation of the number who have lost their lives? We should end the war in Iraq now! We should take the money and spend it on the victims of the Hurricane Katrina disaster. We need peace. We need love.

Irving C. Jones

Philadelphia PA

Bring the Guard home

The National Guard should be our country’s last line of defense in a war. They should be here to help with disaster relief and rescue, and help preserve order during emergencies. Unfortunately the Bush administration thinks that the Guard should be overseas doing the job of the regular Army with less training and lower pay. It is time for all National Guardsmen and women to come home. They are needed here.

Chuck Mann

Greensboro NC

Questions

Why do we call it Katrina when we should call it global warming? Why should we call this a natural disaster when we should call it lack of responsibility to protect the planet? Why doesn’t the president support the Kyoto Protocol in light of these disasters? Why do some people respond with guns when they should respond with solidarity? Why do politicians have the power to kill but not enough power to help those dying of hunger and thirst right at this moment? Why don’t they invest more in research on how to protect the environment rather than in manufacturing weapons? Why don’t they stop selling weapons? Why do we have to cope with this dirty business? Why don’t people start thinking what to do in order to save life in this planet? (We can all do our bit.) How many more years will it take to understand that we all have some responsibility? Why don’t we start educating people on this issue?

G. P.

Via e-mail

Military recruitment in schools

I applaud Mr. Suarez del Solar’s efforts to stop the recruitment of Latino youth (“Latinos step up calls to end war, military recruitment,” PWW 9/3-9). I encourage parents to learn more about the requirement of the No Child Left Behind Act — that schools provide the military with information about our children. Opting out of the provision of information to the military is one way to fight recruitment of children (kids in high school are still children).

But wait a minute. Why should the burden be on us as parents to opt out? And much more importantly, shouldn’t we be fighting to limit the military’s access to our children in schools? The day-in, day-out discussions that recruiters have with our kids is what ends up convincing them to sign up, and lots of false promises heaped up on top of friendly pats on the back. Why should the military be allowed to talk to our children without our permission at all? Let’s be clear — opting out does not protect our children from recruiters. We have to do more. We have to get them out of our schools or let them in only on career day. There is nothing in the law that says they have to have as much access as they do now. Let’s get on our principals to limit their access and stand behind them when the military tries to get tough.

Diane Paul

Cookeville TN

Brilliant man?

Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne has joined the ranks of the GOP intelligentsia! Just when you think you’ve heard it all, Idaho’s Republican-Bushite governor has come up with a plan to cut gas prices in half! And this is how: “Idaho’s governor will let gas stations post prices for a half gallon on outside marquees” (Idaho Statesman 9/4/2005).

Rohn Webb

Melba ID

Take action on gas prices

In response to the rising cost of gasoline, our local club has decided to use a petition to move our congressional delegations to hold hearings on gasoline price gauging and to move in the direction of having the government use the right of eminent domain to take over the oil industry. So far, one of our members got over 90 signatures on his job in one day. Our next major effort will be the Sept. 24 local antiwar rally.

Emil Shaw

Albuquerque NM

Emil Shaw is chair of the New Mexico Communist Party.

Labor Update

Fri, 09 Sep 2005 02:00:00 +0000

A storm of solidarity

AFL-CIO unions are recruiting 1,000 rank-and-file members across the country to provide assistance in areas affected by Hurricane Katrina. Volunteers can sign up at www.aflcio.org/hurricane.

Delegates to the Communications Workers convention voted to send up to $4 million in hurricane relief aid to help CWA families in the area.

The American Federation of Teachers, the Airline Pilots, Air Traffic Controllers, Fire Fighters, Machinists, Postal Workers, Federal Government Employees, TV and radio artists, and the Steelworkers have also established hurricane relief funds to aid their members’ recovery.

The United Steelworkers said that thousands of USW members live and work in the Gulf area affected by the hurricane, and most of the companies its members work for — oil refineries, steel mills, paper mills and a large variety of manufacturing facilities — are shut down due to water and wind damage and lack of electric power, leaving many workers without income.

Picketing Smokey Joe

ARLINGTON, Texas — The offices of GOP Rep. Joe Barton were picketed on Aug. 31 by a large group of unionists and supporters led by the United Auto Workers. Similar activities were going on across a 17-state region of the union.

Barton led the congressional effort to pass the recent energy bill, which helped big oil companies but nobody else. Barton is known in North Texas as “Smokey Joe” because a great deal of the noxious air pollution comes from companies in his district. He protects polluters, even while he heads the congressional committee that is supposed to regulate them. The protesters had to carry out their mission while the ozone alert was “Condition Red!”

Protesters also carried AFL-CIO signs against privatizing Social Security. A handful of peace activists with “No to Big Oil” signs joined in.

NWA safety defects

As the strike of Northwest Airlines mechanics entered its third week, the company contacted the Professional Flight Attendants Association with a proposal to outsource as many as 5,600 jobs, over half of that work force. The Air Line Pilots Association is also being asked to amend its contract to eliminate over 1,000 pilots and accept a 22 percent pay cut. Both unions have continued working during the mechanics strike. The airline is threatening to file for bankruptcy if its demands are not met.

Meanwhile, Federal Aviation Administration inspector reports are not being entered into the agency’s database, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. If they were, an alert and risk assessment of the airline would have been triggered. An FAA inspector charged that 58 percent to 90 percent of inspectors’ reports since the strike began cited defects. The pre-strike defect rate was 3 to 5 percent. A 9 percent defect rate would trigger an internal FAA alert. Since the strike began, the airline’s maintenance has been done by newly recruited nonunion mechanics.

Labor update is compiled by Roberta Wood. (rwood@pww.org). Jim Lane contributed.

Labor activists question mayoral endorsement

Fri, 09 Sep 2005 01:58:00 +0000

News Analysis

NEW YORK — Labor activists are puzzled as to why a few important unions here have given their endorsement to incumbent Mayor Michael Bloomberg in the upcoming mayoral election. His tenure has been marked by bitter disputes with virtually all of the largest public sector unions in the city.

A case in point was the contract struggle with American Federation of State, City, and Municipal Employees District Council 37 (AFSCME DC 37), which represents over 120,000 city workers. Bloomberg’s administration left DC 37 workers without a contract for over two years, and at times walked away from negotiations.

Many in the labor movement saw the contract, which was finally signed in 2004, as a major setback for the union. It introduced something that had previously been unheard of for New York City public workers — a two-tier wage system. Under the contract, all new workers would be paid 15 percent less then current workers for their first two years on the job.

Nevertheless, to the surprise of many of its members and leaders, DC 37 endorsed Bloomberg. “It all seems based on forgetting the last two or three years of a mayor who was anti-labor, anti-even-negotiating, not just DC 37, but the teachers, police, firefighters, etc.,” an elected officer from one of the 52 locals making up DC 37 told the World.

The city’s teachers, represented by the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), have also felt the brunt of Bloomberg’s policies. UFT members — as well as parents and community members — are livid about the damage that he has done to the city’s education system. In place of local control by elected school boards, Bloomberg instituted a top-down system, headed by Chancellor Joel Klein, a businessman with no experience in education, who runs the schools like a for-profit corporation.

Teachers complain that they are not treated as professionals. New rules tell them what kind of movements to make, what to write on chalkboards and what kind of chairs to sit in.

Teachers have been working for over two years without a contract. They were furious when Bloomberg failed to honor his pledge to settle negotiations before the start of the school year.

“How ironic that the mayor uses the hard work of teachers to crow about the improvement in student test scores as he runs for re-election while refusing to engage in the work necessary to close on a contract for those very same teachers,” wrote UFT President Randi Weingarten in an op-ed piece published in several newspapers.

Weingarten noted that NYC class sizes are the highest in the state, and added, “Our teachers are paid the least in the region, 14 percent to 26 percent below teachers who have similar jobs in surrounding counties and towns.”

In New York Teacher, the UFT’s newspaper, Weingarten said that the city “continues to insist that UFT members accept a contract that adheres to the DC 37 settlement of 4 percent over three years. It is also pressing for the elimination of tenure and teacher transfer rights, the return of cafeteria duty and hall patrol.”

Other public unions in the city have fared no better under Bloomberg. The police union, after years without a contract, had to go into arbitration, and the firefighters’ union is battling the city as well, once again, after years without a contract.

AFSCME DC 1707, which represents city day care workers, won a contract in January, but this was after years of negotiations and fight back. The workers had no contract for four years, and had not had a pay raise since 2000.

DC 1707’s executive director, Raglan George, who, for months straight, carried on a daily protest outside of City Hall, said the contract was won after “after two strikes, a march across the Brooklyn Bridge, numerous protests at City Hall and tens of thousands of phone calls, letters and postcards calling for justice at the bargaining table.”

Bloomberg has also reached out of the public sector with policies that clash with the priorities of private sector unions. A major campaign undertaken by the Central Labor Council and community groups has been the Wal-Mart-Free NYC Coalition. But Bloomberg has publicly come out in support of Wal-Mart.

Communist Party, USA Demands Full Federal Support For Katrina Victims

Sun, 04 Sep 2005 08:45:00 +0000

Hurricane Katrina has inflicted an immense and unspeakable tragedy on the people of the Gulf Coast. The situation grows worse by the hour. The Mayor of New Orleans estimates that thousands have died and as many as 100,000 may still be trapped in the flooded city. Without food or drinkable water, time is running out for these men, women and children.

The Communist Party, USA expresses its fullest sympathy and solidarity with all the people who are suffering from the effects of the hurricane, especially the infants, children and seniors, who are the most vulnerable.

Five days into the crisis and the Bush Administration is going in slow motion. We, along with national organizations and local government, demand that the Bush Administration throw the full weight of the Federal Government behind rescue and recovery efforts.

The television images beamed to the world make it clear that it is the African Americans of New Orleans who are bearing the brunt of this catastrophe. It will be a racist, anti-working class crime if Bush fails to deploy enough federal resources to save them and their homes. It will take months before the levees are repaired, New Orleans is pumped out and 500,000 residents can return to their city.

Millions more across the Gulf region—many working class, from every race and walk of life—are homeless, unemployed, in need of medical attention, running out of money, food, water and time due to the disaster.

What did President George W. Bush do? He was slow to return from his month-long vacation, making an aerial tour of the devastation on Wednesday. Then he convened a Rose Garden news conference and offered up a laundry list of the bags of ice, blankets, and cots he has ordered sent to the victims. He pleaded for cash donations from individuals. The White House later announced that former Presidents George Bush, Sr. and Bill Clinton would spearhead a drive for private donations.

Putting the responsibility of solving this crisis situation onto individuals is a cop-out. Bush wants to dodge demands for federal aid to rebuild the shattered lives, homes, and jobs of the victims.

Bush has made only vague allusions to federal funds. What a contrast to his ruthless arm-twisting to ram through Congress $200 billion for the continued occupation of Iraq. Much of that money flowed into the coffers of Halliburton and other military corporations with crony ties to Bush and Dick Cheney.

We demand a massive infusion of no-strings-attached federal aid to rebuild the homes and lives of all the hurricane victims.

National Guard units now needed in the Gulf Coast states are badly depleted because so many soldiers are and so much equipment is deployed in Iraq. We demand that these soldiers be brought home. Now! Assign them to assist the people in rebuilding the Gulf Coast. This calamity has brought home an inescapable truth: We cannot afford George W. Bush’s atrocious war in Iraq.

Could this tragedy have been avoided? The U.S. Congress, at Bush’s request slashed $70 million from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers budget for strengthening the levees that protect New Orleans. For years, engineers have warned that a breach in the levees is a “disaster waiting to happen.” Bush and Congress turned a deaf ear. They needed that money to pay for the occupation of Iraq. They needed that money to pay for Bush’s tax cuts for the rich.

Environmental degradation along the coast and malign neglect of rural and urban communities of color turned a natural disaster into a man-made catastrophe.

We demand that Congress reverse Bush’s tax cuts and slash the insane $500 billion Pentagon weapons budget. Use those revenues to rebuild New Orleans and other impoverished cities and towns across our nation.

We condemn corporate price gouging at the gas pump and in all sales and services in the region. Gas prices should be rolled-back at once. Corporations have done very well in recent years due to the policies of the Bush Administration. It is time for them to pay for the cleanup and reconstruction of the region. No sweetheart deals for rebuilding from Katrina!

Emphasis should be put on rescuing the victims and immediately providing food and shelter. We call for the repeal of the shoot-to-kill order on looters, many who are looking for food, water, medicine and diapers in a city with no available stores or aid.

There could be more devastating storms in the six weeks remaining in the hurricane season. Global warming is heating up the south Atlantic and the Caribbean making for ever more ferocious hurricanes. Yet our know-nothing President vetoed the Kyoto Agreement aimed at curbing global warming, calling it “unproven science.” Bush is bought and paid for by the energy conglomerates that reap enormous profits from the burning of fossil fuels. His recently approved Energy Act guarantees that millions more tons of greenhouse gases will be pumped into the biosphere. Its time to say enough! We demand that the U.S. immediately ratify the Kyoto Agreement and implement an energy program that reduces greenhouse gases.

We applaud the efforts of the NAACP and the AFL-CIO and other organizations that have mobilized to send material aid to the region. The efforts of hundreds of individual volunteers, aid and rescue workers, and courageous neighbors saved countless lives.

We stand with the suffering people of the Gulf Coast and join with the people of the world in offering assistance. Yet personal generosity is not enough. Only the federal government has the resources to end and reverse this tragedy. The best way to help is to force George W. Bush to provide the federal assistance owed to the victims.

Contact your Senators and Congressional Representatives. Demand that they speak out. Call the White House. Demand full federal funding to reconstruct the Gulf Coast states and to rebuild New Orleans! And let’s turnout everyone we can to join the Sept. 24 anti-war march on Washington. Bring the National Guard home!

Senate Switchboard, 202-224-3121 Congressional Switchboard, 202-225-3121 White House Switchboard, 202-456-1414,

AFL-CIO Union Community Fund Donations https://secure.ga3.org/08/UCF_Katrina_Relief

NAACP Relief Donations https://www.naacp.org/disaster/contribute.php

Southern Empowerment Project/Community Organization Relief Donations http://southernempowerment.org/empower/Katrina.html